If dinosaurs were the vehicles we rode into battle against the unholy armies of the dead, it might read like this.

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Mohawks y Corazons pt.3

PICK UP THE PIECESYou were touched that I passed her by, that I chose you. I felt I'd done something right and maybe gained some ground but I knew deep down that I was choosing to only see the monument not the corpses it was built to honor. Then the day that it all shattered came and snuck up beside me asking for cigarettes.
We spent the day together and you were so soft and tasted of denim. You held my hand as we walked through the streets and kissed me in crowds. We talked about everything before and to follow. I thought we might make it if we pushed hard through the storm.
You worked nights at a club with 3 levels. A basement/goth club, the main dance floor at ground level, and then the quiet swanky upstairs. You bartended and the night I visited, you were working in the goth club. To anyone who's never been to a German goth club, fuck dude... fuck.
We planned to meet up in the early morning at this tiny pub after you got off work.
At around midnight I rolled out of your club and walked up to the gutter punk bar, that's hidden on a side street. A brick building covered with ivy and with tons of bikes stacked outside and in. Dingy and dim inside with punks and skins playing fooseball while hardcore bands like FEAR or X, blast through the shitty speakers.
I sat at the bar drinking shots of Jim Beam and cheap beer while writing and rolling cigarettes. I scribbled tons of tiny poems on the backs of scraps of paper I'd collected all day. I listened to the music and I watched the people. Being around the kids in that bar took the edge off all the isolation and loneliness that was hatching within me.
I was just finishing a new cig, when two guys entered the bar and sat down beside me. One was white with somewhat graying sideburns and an old baseball hat on,. He looked like a biker, a greaser in a former life. The other had a darker complexion and off the top I'd have to guess Pakistani. They both looked about early/mid thirties. They sat down beside me and started talking. The language was English! The humor was heavy with cynicism and sarcasm!
There's only one group of people I know that distrust their fellow man and the idea that things will get better that much! Americans! (Don't get me wrong though a lot of Yankee doodles are Yankee douches too).
I bummed a light and they both perked up.
"You American man?"
"Yeah, from Boston, what about you guys."
"I'm from California and he's from Rhode Island."
Turns out they'd both done some time in Boston and had come of age inthe eighties hardcore scene, now older and a smidge wiser they both lived in Hamburg and came to that bar to drink and hangout in a familiar environment.
Many times while traveling by myself, when I seem to be at my most isolated and plagued with doubt someone will appear in my path and re-enforce the lessons of beauty and liberation that life is continuously teaching. Different educators sitting in tiny towns or roaring cities, in parks and bars, by the road and on the roofs. Supporting and lecturing on the idea that this life is your own all you have to do is accept the responsibility and rescue it from other's limits and designs. Find the courage to save yourself.
Chris was the biker looking dude. He worked at a club downtown doing sound and lighting. He'd come over to Europe years ago, he'd seen the fucking Dead Kennedy's in Spain. Dude! I told him what I was doing in Hamburg and the fucked up rack I'd laid myself on. His friend had to leave and go home to his wife (married punks, wow). Chris brought me to another bar like five blocks over. We walked along the street discussing music and how fucked up the Germans and women could be, my cup of self confidence no longer dry. Here was a dude who's past (in many ways) mirrored my present and he was cool! All of a sudden I had a friend and it was like being able to set down your weapons and relax after weeks of being in battle.
We roamed the city flirting with women and fucking with drunks. We ended up at a very white, (literally, the walls and lights) quiet pub. As we sat drinking and discussing family and life he extended an invitation to me to come to his loft for a huge Easter party in like a week or something. I was touched and said I'd make it if I could. And after shaking hands and bowing to the teacher in my own way while saying a silent thanks, I jetted out the door to go meet you when got off work, in a matter of minutes.
I ran up the side streets, passed empty playgrounds and sleeping bodies. It was close to 5 am and still dark, there was no one moving on the residential sidewalks. I ran in the middle of the street, stopping occasionally to catch my breath and walk. I was suddenly filled with this feeling/fantasy of being a ghost on these streets. Of not really being there at all, like time was passing rapidly through the bodies of the living that filled these houses, that lifetimes were started and exterminated in the time it took my to walk one step. I felt like I was losing it, like maybe I wasn't here at all. Maybe I was reliving some past life, a ghost wandering through the places and times it'd lived in as a mortal being. Like some version of Scrooge, except I was more generous and definitely got more poon.
I saw the whole club district up ahead and was shaken from my fantasy. I was a little disappointed to be honest, I didn't want to have no business with the living, they'd worn me out.
I waited outside of your club. Forty five minutes passed. I filled with venom and sorrow, anxiety over having missed you turned to resentment of the whole fucking show. I watched two dudes get in a fist fight over a hat. I just laughed in their faces as they grappled near my feet. Fuck people! Let them all go die. With their stupid outfits and bullshit ideas! Fuck this city! Fuck the monkey bouncers that guard the doors! And fuck us for falling in love!
I left the street and walked to an after hours spot crowded with the recently closed clubs runoff. Wall to wall with people. I sat at the bar taking shots and drinking more beer. I have a card in my wallet with the phrase "Missing the Ramones" written on the back. I wrote it that morning, waiting for you, knowing you wouldn't come. What it basically meant to me at the time of writing was that longing for something familiar and beautiful. Some melody, some attitude, something to believe in.
I was jolted awake when two dudes behind me started choking each other. It was almost comical, they were dressed all nice, and Sunday morning often shines on all our failures. I grabbed the bigger one and pulled him off the other one using a restraint technique I'd been taught at a former job.
In minutes the warring parties were hugging and singing together. The bartender gave me a free beer for doing my part. I should've let them murder each other I thought as I drained it quickly and stumbled to the door.
I sat out on a doorstep rolling a cigarette and poking my open wounds with fascination and malice. A group of Spanish dudes walked by all drunk and stoned out. They started to fuck with me and after one touched my hat I shoved him into the wall and began threatening his life in near perfect Spanish. I remember repeating the phrase "I want to fight you maggot bastard"
again and again. They pulled me off and murmured something about a knife before going into an apartment. I stood there wishing they would, praying they'd come back down. Then I kinda broke, I realized how far down I was. I felt like crying.
I stumbled back to your apartment to find you asleep in your bed. You hadn't even waited for me after work. You hadn't even looked for my face in the crowds that you passed through. I laid down by the foot of your bed and with tears in my eyes gave into sleep.
The next morning we started yelling and accusing the other of pointless crimes, but in the middle of it I just stopped. I was too tired, I was too hungover, I was just too done. I went and called my friend who lives in Denmark to ask if I could come up there and crash. He was psyched and was totally down with my visiting.
I returned and started to pack my stuff. We both seemed to lighten up a little now that we were walking away from the car crash. The weights were still on my back, but it was like I got some extra padding under them.
My last glance of you is still vibrant and very alive in my head. It's Sunday, late morning. The sun pours down through the grey sky into your room. You lay on your bed completely naked. A sheet covers you from the waist down, you look soft, like cathedral lighting. Your red hair partially covers your eyes as you glance at me still with affection. It's not your fault that you push away everyone that cares and it's not such a bad thing that I tried to love you inspite of it.
I kissed you and softly ran my hand over your bare chest down to your golden belly and gently though the brittle hair above your cunt. My knees cracked as I stood and my balance wasn't at it's peak as I threw my pack on and quietly closed your door behind me, deafened by whispers and longing.

The unfortunate gets preyed on by vulture's eyesEighty six cents in these pockets of mineYou can take my wallet you can take my timebut you can't take my heart, it's in the city behind.